Saturday, December 04, 2004

Chicken Tales

Today Dec. 4 is my late dad’s birthday. The family has decided to have lunch at Max’s in Scout Tuazon, QC. It’s the “main branch” of Max’s, one that the family has been going to every time there was a special family occasion—birthday, christening, graduation. When we were growing up, it wasn’t a celebration if it wasn’t in Max’s.

As a kid, I was fascinated looking at the colorful carps and other fishes swimming in their fishponds all throughout the restaurant. I was always amazed at the different areas throughout the restaurant—the open-air pavilions, the air-conditioned function rooms, the gardens all around.

Grade school, high school, and college—every graduation, I celebrated it in Max’s. All birthday celebrations were held in Max’s—until my parents realized that celebrating everyone’s birthday in Max’s was turning out to be a very expensive treat. So after a while we’d just have a family dinner at home, with Ligaya’s fried chicken.

Ligaya’s was one of two restaurants found only in Marikina with fried chicken as their specialty. The other was the more popular Johnny’s Fried Chicken (with the tagline, “The Fried of Marikina”). But we never really liked the taste of Johnny’s so we often ordered Ligaya’s instead. (Personally I think the cheesy tagline had a negative effect on us too.)

When Kentucky Fried Chicken first opened in the Philippines, we marveled at the huge sizes of their chicken pieces. Soon Ligaya’s was forced to close shop; Johnny’s though is still around. Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their moniker to the abbreviated KFC, but it wasn’t just their name that got smaller—so did their chicken pieces.

When the lechon manok craze hit the country, we favored Andok’s. But after a while we got tired of the taste and switched to their liempo instead. Kenny Rogers a so-so hit for the family—one can say he failed to enter our family gastronomy charts.

So many fried chicken houses, so many birds slaughtered. I hope there’s no bird flu anymore.